


On the Basis of Echoes

by annecoulmanross



Category: The Terror (TV 2018), The Terror - Dan Simmons
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, First Kiss, First Time, Illnesses, M/M, Minor Character Death, Missing Scene, Not Technically a Fix-It but Go Ahead and Imagine the Fix-It Ending of Your Choice, Pining, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, Very Mild Period-Typical Homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:28:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27520774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annecoulmanross/pseuds/annecoulmanross
Summary: James Fitzjames had already seen the heart-mark on Francis Crozier’s chest, the one that only Francis’s soulmate should be able to see. But James hadn’t said a word, and it had become another burden for him to haul away from the ice-beset ships, along with his declining health and his unrequited feelings and his endless, endless secrets.
Relationships: Captain Francis Crozier/Commander James Fitzjames
Comments: 26
Kudos: 76
Collections: Fall Fitzier Exchange





	On the Basis of Echoes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Yuu_chi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yuu_chi/gifts).



> For the prompt “Soulmate AU based in the terror canon.” 
> 
> “Memory commits you to the nuance, the fog. If you act on memory, you commit yourself on the basis of echoes. No basis on which to inch out across your life, and yet all you have.” 
> 
> – M. John Harrison
> 
> "I accept that my consciousness is largely made up of my projections and is a series of illusions and approximations, and that my experience of a plant, for example, mostly comes from me rather than the plant. Rousseau touches on this when he says that the plants he pressed contain the impressions he has stored in them, and these impressions can be unlocked by viewing them again. But are there thoughts and feelings in the plants, accessible to me, that I haven't put there?" 
> 
> – James Walsh, _The Arctic Plants of New York City_ (2015)

Things were always less certain in the quiet.

The night had, in fact, been quiet at first, but it had slowly filled with slight whispers, echoes through the mist: the shuffling noises of the shale, the muffled voices of the men scattered around their campfires.

In the midst of all this, James Fitzjames and Francis Crozier sat in something that passed for companionable silence, having stationed themselves together within one of the small sleeping-tents, looking over the maps once again, planning the journey ahead – as they did every night, now, at Terror Camp.

When the map in front of him began to blur before his eyes, James sighed, exhausted, and leaned back until the low, hard line of the cot-frame cut into his spine. He almost thought he could feel the cold metal through the layers of his shirt and the thick knit of his Guernsey. James seemed to always feel cold these days – which shouldn’t really be surprising, but of late the ice had tightened its grip more firmly around James’s ribs, refusing to let go. A part of James was missing, a certain vital organ – and the frost had tried, in vain, to replace it.

James already knew, after all, what it was that he was missing.

One night, during Francis’s convalescence the previous winter, James had seen the tell-tale marks covering Francis’s chest, tracing over his heart. Clinging roses, delicate peach-pink flowers interspersed with thorns, just like the blossoms that had given James’s childhood home its name – Rose Hill. These roses comprised one of James’s earliest memories, when his Aunt Louisa had caught young James, all of seven, trying to pluck off a rose-bud, succeeding only in bloodying his fingers on the spines. Instead of growing angry, James’s aunt had shown him how to hold the rose carefully, to cut cleanly through the stem. She’d slipped the pink flower through James’s button-hole, and later, when the rose had begun to wither, she’d taught James to press it between the pages of Locke and Kant. James had kept the bloom faithfully; even now he carried it, tucked within the pages of the one journal he’d dared to bring out onto the ice and shale. Surely it was a vanity, to keep such a memento, but James hadn’t been able to leave it behind.

So when James had seen that very same rose on Francis’s skin, he’d known all too well what _that_ meant.

There were those who thought that men who claimed to have seen their heart-marks on other men were lying. That heart-marks only occurred between man and wife. James had long suspected that should he somehow find himself sufficiently attached to another person to even hope to see a mark on their skin, the person who bore his mark would be a man. Heart-marks, the patterns and pictures that bloomed over one’s chest when viewed through the eyes of one’s perfect partner – there was still an element of choice to them, it was thought. James knew the flowers he’d seen were only what had grown naturally from seeds that he himself had sown.

Still, James hadn’t been prepared for his own carefully-hidden-away admiration and frustration and concern over his fellow captain to have come spilling out in the form of a heart-mark, the shapes of rosy petals curling up past Francis’s sleep-loosened collar and over his broad collar-bone. Roses visible only to James. Seeing the mark, all those months ago, James had swiftly made his excuses and hurried quickly away. After, Francis had seemed to remember little of what had transpired during his recovery, to James’s great relief.

Francis couldn’t feel the same way, after all. He and James were hardly even friends – only recently, and only with great hesitance. If ever he should catch a glimpse of the skin over James’s ribs, Francis would only see the same thing James himself saw – the once-tanned flesh pale with illness, and rent with scars. It was entirely possible – indeed, more than likely – that, though James was _meant_ for Francis, Francis was not _meant_ for James; everyone had read about or witnessed such every-day tragedies. James had heard it speculated that Francis was already a part of one, that, much as Francis loved Ms. Cracroft, she’d turned him down in the certainty that her mark would never grace the skin over his heart.

When his eyes began to ache, James realized he’d been staring at the same line of notations on the map in front of him for countless minutes, barely remembering to blink. With a soft sigh, James pressed his eyes closed, willing away the inevitable headache.

“Alright there, James?” Francis asked from his seat at the desk they’d hauled all the way out across the jagged ice and rock.

James wrapped his arms around his legs, pulling his knees up to his chest until they pressed against the places where his wounds were beginning to reopen. “Fine,” he said, trying to convince his eyes to focus, a task which had become ever more difficult of late. Even the dim lamplight made his eyelids smart and tears well up in the corners of his eyes. He rubbed at his cheek with the back of one hand.

When James’s eyesight cleared, he saw that Francis’s brow was creased with concern. “Are you well, James?” Francis asked again.

James nodded. This convinced Francis not at all, apparently.

“Something’s troubling you.”

“It’s nothing,” James insisted. Nothing Francis could fix, anyway. The slow betrayals of James’s body – and, worse, the doubts that plagued him, made him despair of their chances – those were James’s burden alone. As were James’s lifetime-store of secrets, needless to say. The heart-mark being merely the most recent among them.

Francis frowned. “It’s not nothing,” he said, voice heavy with sincerity. “Don’t hide from me, James.”

It was this, at last, that broke James’s thin resolve. _This_ was the familiarity he’d longed to have with Francis, this attentiveness turned directly on James. And now that he had it, it hurt. James’s breath departed from him in a long sigh, leaving little left to carry his next question.

“Are we going to make it, Francis?” James asked quietly, the words sounding so pale and childish. He regretted the weakness almost as soon as it left his lips.

Since he immediately buried his face in his own knitted sleeve, James couldn’t see the expression on Francis’s face, but he could hear Francis approaching because of the shifting of shale underfoot, and then he could feel Francis’s hand come to rest lightly on his shoulder.

“James,” Francis’s voice was firm, commanding. “Look at me.” His hand slipped from James’s shoulder to the back of James’s neck, helping him find the strength to obey. Lifting his head was an unexpected agony for James, the bone-deep weariness fighting him every inch. But Francis helped. It was enough.

When James opened his eyes, he saw Francis’s face was limned with the warm lamp-light. It made him look softer than James had ever seen, somehow. It made James want desperately for Francis to stay here, with him, instead of returning to his own tent as he always did, eventually. It made James want things that he shouldn’t want.

“James,” Francis said again, and his thumb rubbed small circles into the knot of tension that lay heavy at the top of James’s spine. “James, I’m going to get us out of here as best I can, do you hear me?”

James managed a small nod.

“James,” Francis said, the ceaseless repetition making the name into a prayer. He knelt down beside James. “What’s brought this on, James? What’s wrong?”

“I’m–” _running out of time, breaking apart already, not likely to last, ready to lie down and rest, not sure how to go on like this–_ “I’m just tired,” James admitted.

“Well, there’s no need for me to keep you awake anymore, James,” Francis said, sounding decisive, already beginning to move away. “I’ll let you get some sleep.”

“No–” James reached out a desperate hand before Francis could rise to his feet. The effort of it almost sent James tumbling to the shale, as he lost the balance he’d thought his bent knees would promise, but before he could fall, Francis’s hands were on James’s body, and James lost all sense of his surroundings; all light dimmed, and the world narrowed down into nothing more than Francis, kneeling above him, the lamplight now shining round his head like a halo.

James realized Francis had settled him onto the cot.

“Christ, James, what have you done to yourself?”

“It’s nothing,” James insisted.

Francis scoffed. “I’ll not hear more falsehoods from you.”

“Just worry and weariness, Francis,” James lied. “I promise.”

“Will it help if I stay?” Francis asked. “Will you rest, if I do?”

“Yes.”

There were only so many things James could lie about: this was not one of them.

Francis continued, “James, I am going to keep you safe.”

And Francis was so close to him, now. If James could only muster the strength to lift himself, he might even press his mouth to Francis’s. Instead, he could only sink further into the thin pillow and offer a whispered word – a single desperate, “Please.”

“I will,” Francis promised. “I’ll carry you out of here myself if I must.”

“I know you will,” James said, still quiet. “I– no. Please, just–”

Francis gentled him with a question, asking, “What _is_ it, James?” There was an edge of frustration to Francis’s voice, but not anger – there was never anger, not anymore. He’d been so kind to James these last months; that was what had led James to this point.

“I want you – for you to–” _Some comfort, something for James to hold onto. More of Francis, for James to hoard up inside himself against the not-so-distant future moment when Francis would have to become captain first and foremost, leading them south, and James would have to command men once again himself. One moment of indulgence, to carry James through such impossible tasks. Even if Francis didn’t feel as James did. A crumb of affection was all James needed, no proof of permanence._ But James couldn’t possibly ask.

“James–”

“Please,” James repeated, placing his hand atop Francis’s, unable at last to say anything more. And yet this final entreaty – _this,_ at least, Francis seemed – disastrously – to understand, for his brow rose in suspicion. James held his breath, looking only at Francis’s face as though anticipating some ruinous collision, some cataclysm, he himself unwilling but unable to look away.

But no such disaster came. Instead, Francis’s furrowed brow softened once more, and his mouth opened onto the careful shape of “Are you certain?”

“Yes,” James said, wondering. “Yes.”

And then, at last, at last, the distance between then disappeared and Francis was there. His lips on James’s lips.

Under Francis’s mouth, James came alive.

Whence the vitality came, to kiss Francis so viciously, to grip at Francis’s hand, to pull at Francis’s waistcoat until the buttons loosened and their threads snapped, James did not know or care. He only managed to push the mutilated waistcoat over Francis’s arms and off – he was too desperate to dare any more delay. He lay back and spread his legs, and then tugged at Francis’s shirtsleeves until he tipped into the curve of James’s body, held between his knees. The welcome weight pressed against James’s ribs, against the place where– but James refused to give the pain even a moment’s thought, too busy watching how his own fingers were pulling now at the top buttons of Francis’s shirts, digging down through the layers of cotton and silk to reach the warm skin beneath, the gilded arc of Francis’s collar-bone with its invisible rosy petals that James wanted to kiss, to _bite–_

Francis made a shocked sound when James put his mouth to the thin skin there, when James made a gentle offer with his teeth. James stopped himself and looked up to see Francis’s eyes wide, gazing down at him, filled with something James wasn’t sure how to deserve. But then Francis was kissing him again, anyway, and nothing more was required of James but to answer, to move–

They shifted together – gasping. When James had to turn away and reach desperately for air to pull into his lungs, Francis moved from kissing his mouth to mouthing at his neck, worrying at the line between James’s shirt and James’s skin, teasing. It was too much and not enough, all at once – James pitched into the contact, trying to show Francis that he ought not to respect the fabric, that he was free to rend the warp and weft if he so chose, whatever would enable him to draw closer to James, allow him to kiss over the places that would make James keen and buck into him, blank skin though they must, assuredly, be.

Just as the motion was beginning to spark something in James’s heart, in James’s blood, that made him want to roll them over, to push Francis down onto the bed and to seat himself upon Francis entire, just then, just then–

Just then, a shout went up. “Somebody help us!” Somewhere outside.

A man screaming in pain.

James pushed Francis away. Pressed Francis’s coat into his arms. “Go,” he said. “I’ll follow.”

Frowning, Francis looked down at him. “Are you sure–?”

“Go,” James insisted. “Your men need you.” When Francis still made no move to leave, James bit his lip, and, in a moment of excessive indulgence, he reached out and re-fastened the top button of Francis’s under-shirt. It would do nothing to remedy the déshabillé of the over-shirt atop it, nor restore the lost-cause of a waistcoat, but at least Francis would not show the delicate skin over his sternum; that, like the blush of pink rose-blossoms that marked it, would be for James alone.

Still, Francis wavered.

James pushed again at Francis’s chest. “Good god, just _go._ ”

Francis looked at him, agonized, for one moment more, and then he dashed out of the tent, already pulling on his coat over his thin shirtsleeves.

James fell back against the bed, his heart racing. His lips were bruised with the memory of Francis’s kisses, and James felt somehow soft around the edges, like an over-worn blanket, felted into softness with love and use. His own hair, James was certain, had been mussed against the pillow – likely beyond repair. He wanted nothing more than to sink into the sheets and press all of these sensations deeper into his skin, into himself, so he would not forget them, ever.

As the worrisome shouts and moans from outside the tent continued, however, James roused himself. He allowed the last dregs of his strength to lift him to his feet, so that he might straighten his clothes and then rush after Francis. All else must wait.

Francis’s voice sounded hollow to James’s ears as he ordered the men back to their tents, after the bloody events that had spelled the end of poor Mr. Morfin. With his eyes fixed on the body sprawled across the shale, Francis’s mouth was a thin, open gash of disappointment, and he remained standing, unmoving, even after the corpse was carried away – unable to pull himself, apparently, from the splash of red across the pale stones.

After a moment of watching this gruesome scene, James stepped closer. “Come, Francis,” he murmured, and placed a gentle hand on Francis’s arm.

Francis allowed himself to be led away, and James swallowed down his worry at Francis’s unblinking agreement, at the mechanical way he turned with James’s slightest touch; but James’s thoughts, his worries about Francis’s state were not for the men under their command to hear.

They retreated back to James’s tent, where the rumpled sheets seemed to scream, to shout what had happened there just minutes before. The shape of the cloth still creased in the echo of James’s body where Francis had pressed him into the linens, the fold of the blanket where James had gripped it tight as Francis had kissed his neck–

James tore his gaze away. That felt like something that had happened years ago, now. In some different world where a man had not just been killed at the very center of their camp. There had been – despite everything – a safety, a security that was now gone.

And Francis knew it, too. The horrible blankness had not left him, even now.

Looking closer, James realized that Francis was shaking – shivering, perhaps? James, worried, reached for the open front of Francis’s coat, thinking to take it off, that Francis might put on something warmer underneath, but as soon as James drew close enough, Francis took hold of his shoulder, as if to steady himself.

“Francis?” James asked.

At first, it seemed as though Francis hadn’t heard him at all. But at last Francis exhaled shakily and spoke. “I should have– I should have stopped him somehow,” Francis said, voice heavy and low. “I should have seen this happening, before it reached this point.”

“You couldn’t have known,” James said, drawing closer. “You couldn’t have known it had gotten this bad, that he was suffering so.”

Emotions had always been plain and evident upon Francis’s face – it was no difficult task for James to name this new look as the guilt that it was, sharp and pointed. “I– this was not random madness, James,” Francis said. “Mr. Goodsir came to me and told me that he thinks the canned provisions are causing certain problems in the men – recklessness, pain, night terrors. Not just the cans that have been turning up spoiled, but all of them – improperly sealed, he said, and full of lead, which causes such illness. Certainly that is what Mr. Morfin suffered.”

James pushed down the deep despair that this knowledge stirred up in him – they needed no other obstacles at this moment – and focused on only Francis.

“Surely if there were anything to be done for that, it would already have been done,” James said. “There can be little remedy for something that affects our food.”

“Mr. Goodsir wanted hunting parties sent out onto the pack,” Francis admitted. “For fresh meat, untainted by this defect.”

James could tell from Francis’s face what he’d thought of that plan. “Now that we are finally off the pack, then, we shall have hunting parties,” James said. “You could do nothing about that before now.”

Francis nodded. “Still – I could have done _something._ ”

James watched the formless regret shift across Francis’s frowning mouth and mournful eyes. “You did your job,” James insisted, “–as a captain. You talked to him, you prevented any further loss of life–”

“I almost lost y–” Francis’s voice broke, and he reached out to grip James’s hand. “James, that was too close.”

James’s body remembered something of the shock of the gunshot, the instinctive reaction to leap away, the knowledge that the bullet had grazed his boot and struck the shale. It had left him shaken, but he’d recovered; better than Francis had, perhaps. It hadn’t escaped James’s notice that Francis had focused so intently upon placing himself bodily in between James and the gun that he’d lost control of the situation. James would have been angry at Francis’s attempt at self-sacrifice, would have mustered up some reproach for Francis – that he ought think of his men and himself before throwing himself on the sword for James – had James not been so shaken by how desperately Francis clutched at him.

“Francis,” James said, instead. “I’m fine. You didn’t lose me.”

The way that Francis looked at him – James had not seen the like.

“You have not lost me,” James repeated, and pressed Francis’s hand, as though that would imprint his meaning upon the skin.

“James–” Francis said. They stood very close now, requiring no more than a whisper. “Do you–”

Whatever Francis meant – any of it. “Yes.”

Francis lifted his hand from James’s shoulder but before James could even begin to mourn the loss, this same hand had risen up to cradle the back of his head. James breathed in sharply, and Francis paused. But James nodded, full of hope – perhaps it was not so different a world from the golden minutes before the gunshot, perhaps–

And then Francis had brought their lips together and the notion of kissing Francis again overwhelmed James completely. At first, it was gentle, almost sweet, the kind of kiss James hadn’t had in many years. Then, James felt Francis place his other hand on James’s hip, drawing their bodies together, and it brought a wild sound winging out of James’s mouth and into Francis’s, echoing between them.

Francis devoured his mouth hungrily, then, with a vigor he’d lacked the last few long minutes, when he’d seemed numbed and far away. This, now, was a frenzied thing, James thought, born of regret – but he did not scorn it. He opened his lips to admit Francis’s tongue, moaned gently when Francis cradled James’s head in both of his hands and bit at his lips. The need rose in James’s chest until he was choking with it, until it forced him to wrest his head away and gasp for breath.

Francis placed his brow against James’s temple, then, and, in a quiet voice, lower even than a whisper, Francis said, “If I were to believe in omens, James, I should think this a very ill-fated thing.”

James lifted his eyes to look at Francis’s face, and – though it pained him – asked, frankly, “Do you not want this, then?”

But Francis shook his head. “I do, James,” he swore. “I want this too much. And fortune has rarely seen fit to allow me the things I want.”

Setting aside the warmth of being wanted – something to be turned over and over later, picked apart into its threads – James drew himself up. “Since when have we cared for fortune in all this?” he said. “Let me– let me love you, even if God does not.”

A surprise to Francis, this – for his eyes widened. James cursed the depths of his own feelings, cursed his proclivity for speaking them too soon, for speaking them at all. What could there be of love in this place? Surely Francis had wanted only a kiss, a tumble, some comfort from a brother-officer, a fellow captain who could meaningfully consent to such things where the enlisted men could not. Surely Francis would not see any mark of himself on James’s skin, would not want words of love to leave James’s lips.

And yet Francis did not draw away.

Instead he passed his hands over the curve of James’s shoulders, back and forth and back again until James shivered, and Francis, seeing this, pressed him back down onto the cot. Though Francis tried to protest, James then pulled off his Guernsey and brought the blankets and furs up around himself in place of the knit garment. Shaking his head at James’s vanity, Francis placed his hands gently back on James’s shoulders.

“May I–” Francis asked, and James nodded eagerly.

“Anything.”

Francis’s fingers wandered to the hem of James’s shirt, tugging it up.

Perhaps James ought to have realized that this moment would matter, but he remained too focused on the sensation of those fingers, warm even through the fabric. Firm, determined, opening James up to the cold air – though James was so aflame it hardly mattered. The sensations were too much; James closed his eyes. And so it was that he did not see Francis’s face when James’s chest was bared at last.

Francis’s fingers faltered, pressed to James’s skin one moment and pulled away the next.

Panicked, James opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was Francis’s hurt expression, the way his eyes were downcast and his mouth seemed dismayed, even as his fingers rested mere inches from James’s breastbone. At least, in the darkness and the dim lamp-light, James knew Francis wouldn’t likely spot the scars hidden along the sides of James’s rib-cage, red-rimmed as they reopened. No, this disappointment must be only that Francis saw no heart-mark. A part of James was almost pleased that Francis would even _want_ there to be one, marking James as his.

“It’s–” James bit back his sorrow. “It’s okay, Francis. I never expected– I– well, merely because I can see yours–”

At this, Francis looked up quickly, seeming shocked. “You can?” he asked. “James, when have you ever seen my–”

“When you were ill,” James admitted. “I saw the top of it, just here,” he said, letting his hand rest lightly at the base of Francis’s neck. He could feel when Francis swallowed, breathed deep.

“James,” Francis said, placing his hand over James’s fingers. “What did you see?”

“Roses,” James whispered. “They would bloom at – at my aunt’s house, when I was a boy.”

Francis’s other palm pressed flat, in turn, against James’s ribs, drawing from him a sharp gasp. Looking somewhat fearful, Francis began to withdraw, but James stopped his motion. “Please,” he said, gentle, but with an edge of desperation. “I said I never expected for you to see your mark on me. It doesn’t have to change anything, that you don’t. I still–”

“–no, James.” Francis brushed his thumb across the bottom of James’s ribs. “James, I _do._ I do see it. My– my mark.”

James’s heart leapt.

Slowly, Francis traced a meandering path up across his skin. “There are threads, currents,” Francis announced, sounding hoarse. “Like a tapestry – in waves. I’ve never seen this before.”

James felt his own rapid heartbeat beat back against him through Francis’s fingertips. He tried to picture waves made of spun thread, and found that he couldn’t be certain what Francis was seeing, but that mattered not at all. Of course Francis’s mark would gesture toward the sea; and James would be proud to wear it, whatever it looked like through Francis’s eyes. With unsteady breath, he tried out a shaky smile.

By this point, Francis’s fingers had made their way to the fastening of James’s trousers.

“Would you mind if I–?” Francis asked, and James couldn’t help but laugh, bitten-off and disbelieving. He lifted his hand to cup Francis’s cheek, looking into his terribly earnest eyes.

“Not in the slightest,” James replied. “Please, Francis, please do.”

Francis opened up the placket of James’s trousers with care, slipping his fingers inside.

This alone would be enough, James was sure. He was already terribly close to the edge – had been since Francis had kissed him so hungrily.

So James once again found himself surprised and overwhelmed and overjoyed when Francis shifted down and put his mouth on James. Even as Francis bent himself to the task, his free hand remained resting on James’s chest, as though unable to lose contact with the marks of which he’d spoken. James’s breath hitched higher, feeling Francis’s touch, firm and sure, and his mouth, wondrously well-practiced. James gasped, and arched, and spent, and fell back, shivering with delight.

For a few long, breathless moments, James was unable to keep his eyes open, as satisfied as he was. When he did lift his gaze, he saw that Francis had risen to sit back on the edge of the small cot, and was looking down at James, smiling. All at once, James felt certain that Francis was too far away.

Pushing himself clumsily up and ignoring the screaming of his ribs, James pressed a kiss to Francis’s jaw. This brought a blush to Francis’s cheek, as though this were somehow the most scandalous thing they’d done together.

It made James want very much to throw all caution to the wind.

Made him want more, tired and fully satisfied as he was.

James gnawed against the inside of his cheek. “I–” he said, unsure how to make the offer. “I would let you have me, take me, if you wished it.”

“I don’t wish to harm you,” Francis said, by way of some explanation, perhaps – a refusal. There was something that looked like worry in his eyes.

So James’s weaknesses were beginning to become apparent. James readied himself for Francis to turn away. But this did not seem to be Francis’s meaning, for Francis was already guiding James back down onto the camp-bed. To James’s delight, Francis settled atop him with little hesitation.

“If you’ll permit–” Francis said, but James was already nodding, bringing his knees up to keep Francis close, drawing Francis into another kiss, breathless and hasty.

As Francis found his pleasure against the cradle of James’s thighs, James fancied he could feel his own strength softly waning, as though it were being drawn into Francis. As though they both might wake up the next morning and Francis would be renewed, born again, able to handle whatever horrors faced them next, and James would diminish. It would be a fine trade, James thought. To be pleasantly weary, that Francis might thrive, might smile and laugh and find them some easy passage away from their present circumstances. James’s arm, his ribs ached in protest at the thought, but James ignored his body in favor of running his hand into Francis’s fine golden hair and holding on tight, his breath quickening along with Francis’s own.

When Francis tipped over the edge, James found himself shivering in sympathy, as the pleasant shock ran also through his own limbs, pushing him into a second release of his own. He wished, fleetingly, that he could have watched Francis’s face as it had happened, but Francis had still been kissing the skin of James’s throat, and had uttered a small sound that James had felt rather than heard, a wondrous little wounded noise that had crawled its way out of Francis’s mouth and crept into the notch above James’s sternum and echoed there.

Once James had ceased his trembling, he loosened his hand from Francis’s hair, and did his best to straighten the gilded strands that tumbled over Francis’s brow, to muster them back into the orderly arrangement of earlier that evening. Back before, when they’d been talking of innocent things like maps and charts–

“A lost cause,” Francis said, softly, and James froze before realizing that Francis was speaking of James’s hand still in his hair.

James allowed himself a small smile. “And if I wanted to muss it further?”

“Do your worst,” Francis offered. “I’m afraid we’ve mussed yours quite beyond the point of return.” He reached up, at this, to catch a long, loose curl of James’s hair and weave it between his fingers. James prayed that he wouldn’t pull too hard, or let his fingertips stray to James’s hairline, where the blood would likely well up at the slightest touch.

But Francis let go of the strand, and set his fingers to James’s cheek instead, as his other hand traced the woven patterns he’d described over James’s heart. “Beautiful,” he said, eyes dancing, down and back up, and James thought it couldn’t possibly be true – not anymore – but he loved it anyway. Loved _Francis_ anyway.

Of that, at least, he was entirely, blissfully, certain.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, this wouldn't have been possible without the unwavering support of my beta @[kaserl](https://kaserl.tumblr.com) who endured a truly remarkable amount of waffling from me on this one!


End file.
